Bundet av Blod
by A Little Blue Star
Summary: Loki/OFC. Cinematic Universe/616 mashup. In which the world is plagued by gods, heroes, and monsters, magic runs rampant, and a blood pact is accidentally made.
1. Chapter 1

Holly Greene was, for the entirety of her life, ordinary. And she was quite genuinely happy with that fact. She wasn't considered beautiful, though in her Prom photos she qualified for 'pretty', but was mostly plain with gray-blue eyes and dark blonde hair that was a shade away from being brown. Her grades in school were fair thanks to dutiful note-taking and study. After graduating she moved from Middletown to a tiny apartment in Queens to attend community college, much to the fretful dismay of her mother and gruff but warm praise of her father.

The first two semesters was spent taking general classes without thinking too much about what major to enroll in, and halfway through the third found her flirting first with English and then meandering to Library Sciences after English Romances filled up and the only thing that fit with her schedule was Information Ethics.

The week after classes started she submitted a change of major form to the office of registration.

Holly was sorting a stack of books needing shelved at her part time work study at the school library when a new cast came on the small TV they kept in the back room. Glancing up when another work study student turned up the volume, Holly found herself gaping and transfixed by the spectacle.

Strange borealis ribboned across the blue noon sky, a backdrop to the spectacular destruction of a small town in New Mexico by what looked like some kind of giant, silver - and honestly, downright medieval looking - Iron Man . The cameraphone video jittered badly as swaths of lightning cut suddenly across the scene, a brief flash of a man and bright crimson, and then the clip ended. The station cut to a pretty Asian reporter behind a desk who explained that the footage shown was claimed by the government to be a controlled military exercise acting out a potential attack on US soil.

Ever the conspiracy theorist, the young man Holly barely knew but traded quiet nods with in passing immediately grabbed his flip phone - "Stark and Jobs have all kinds of fucking GPS trackers transmitting to the government all the time!" he'd said vehemently when questioned for his choice in technology - and began typing furiously into it. The station began to run the clip again, but Holly was already turning back to her work, not sparing it a second glance.

Three days later, the Chitauri invaded Manhattan. From her secondhand sofa she sat, transfixed and not entirely believing, at the TV as news crews documented the chaos. Her mother called and begged her to leave the city, even though Holly and her father both tried to reason that it was safer to stay put.

"You call us if anything changes, Hollygirl," her father said, gruff to hide his concern in front of his family when Holly said she had to go, that Mrs. O'Hare down the hall was calling the other residents.

Holly promised she would, said she loved them both, and wrapped up even more tightly in the blanket her mother had knit as a graduation present while the destruction continued on the TV.

In the aftermath of the devastation, and the revelation that Earth was not alone, Holly suddenly found herself in a world that changed literally overnight. She suddenly found herself classmates with mutants, and news reports of costumed 'heroes' and criminals became a normal occurrence. She even owned a Captain America coffee tumbler now.

Somehow, superheroes had suddenly come to life, but the quiet reality was that she and everyone else had simply been blind to them before.

The abundant greenery of Queens had begun to stain with yellow and red, chill winds plucking at leaves and litter and biting at cheeks. Summer had broken and given way to Autumn finally, and Holly found herself grateful for the respite (her apartment had no air conditioning and the fan merely pushed the stale, hot air around).

The reconstruction of Manhattan had wrecked havoc with the general flow of life for most the city, and Holly had been left with half her classes cancelled. To fill the time she picked up a part time job at a coffee shop near her apartment, and for the first since moving she'd found herself with the free time to get to know the neighborhood.

About halfway between home and work was a massive oak tree that seemed to lord over a tiny park. When the oven-like summer heat of the apartment became too oppressive Holly had taken her homework and found solace in its ample shade, and was reluctant to give up the habit when the weather chilled. She was close to the park now, the yellow-tinged oak visible above the trees that lined the sidewalk, and decided that she'd finish the rest of her half-eaten lunch there rather than wait until home.

There wasn't a bench, the park too small to warrant even an old and splintery wood one, so Holly leaned her back to the rough bark of the tree. She'd begun to nibble at half of a ham and swiss sandwich when she saw a black and white bird hopping along the grass nearby, stopping every few inches to poke and claw at the ground before moving on. It took several minutes for Holly to realize it was a magpie; a bird entirely unheard of in the city, let alone this far east.

She began to fumble in her bag for her phone, intending to take a photo, and her thumb nearly pressing on the shutter when she noticed the bird had paused and was scratching quite enthusiastically at a bit of dirt. A glitter emerged under its ministrations and her curiosity was sparked.

"Tsst tsst," she hissed with her tongue, but the bird ignored her until she pulled off a piece of sandwich and tossed it nearby. The magpie took the bait and fluttered over to inspect and greedily peck at the bit of food.

Holly poked carefully at the dirt and something sparkled brilliantly under the toe of her boot, so she crouched down and gingerly began scraping away at the hard earth. She nearly gave up, ready to call it a bit of broken glass, when the glittering thing suddenly came loose under her fingers.

Streaks of mud marred her prize, but couldn't hide the breathtaking beauty of the crystal that lay in center her palm. It seemed to sparkle with an inner fire, brilliant rainbow-like light dancing within the smooth facets and warm to the touch despite the chill prison it had been freed of. It reminded her of something she had seen, not long ago, and staring into the fluttering, shifting depths of unearthly light seemed to pull her down into them.

A shrill chattering and sudden pain in her palm ripped Holly from the trance, the hot pain in her chest as she gasped making her realize she'd forgotten how to breathe. The magpie screeched at her again and lunged for the crystal in her bloody hand and she instinctively clutched it tightly, grimacing as the earth ground into the wound and a jolt ran up her arm and all through her body.

"Stupid bird!" she cried, stumbling back and falling on her backside as the magpie lunged once more in a flutter of feathers, glittering black eyes fixed on her. "Stop!"

At once the bird dropped to its feet on the ground, wings still half-spread and feathers puffing out in agitation, but it didn't advance. Holly found herself staring into its eyes, clutching her hurt hand to her chest and feeling suddenly cold all over. Shivering violently, she stumbled to her feet and backed away, but the magpie kept as still as if it had suddenly become stone. Only the sleek black head moved to track her as she edged away, around the oak, and when she felt concrete beneath her boots did she turn away and run.

Her lungs were screaming and her ankle hurt when she tripped on the stairs up the apartment building landing, and didn't stop until her door was slammed and locked tightly at her back. Shaking so badly with cold that Holly fell to her knees, and her guts wrenched so agonizingly she fell in a heap with barely a whimper. The radiant crystal, forgotten in blind panic, burned like bitter ice in her hand but she couldn't feel her fingers enough to let it go.

Holly's breath began to billow white in front of her eyes as her teeth chattered uncontrollably. A brief wash of warmth in her mouth and spilling over her lip; she'd bitten her tongue, but the pain didn't register to her sluggish nerves, and in an instant the bright drops were frozen to her cheek. Darkness began to seep at the edges of her vision, tears freezing on her lashes as the world faded quickly around her. There was a dull rushing in her ears - my heartbeat, came a whisper from far away inside her - that began to stutter and slow.

I think I'm dying.

The thought wracked her with a shudder, tears freezing before they could fall and clouding her already darkening sight. No, I don't want to, she thought, distant and foggy. Help me. Please, God, no.

As the last of her sight sank into frigid blackness, Holly thought she heard someone answer.

"I'm afraid there is only myself."


	2. Chapter 2

At first Loki had believed the girl to actually be praying to him when he heard her mind's whisper. Oh, certainly, there were Midgardians who prayed to him still, called themselves 'Heathens' and anarchists and made play at reviving the rituals of their ancestors. There was simply no substitute for a good old fashioned ritual sacrifice, though, and these mortals were so queasy and hypocritical when it came to the slaughter of animals.

And, when the prayers of Midgardians did reach his consciousness, they resembled little more than the droning of gnats on a summer's day and words did not even have the strength to form. She, however, sounded like someone had spoken to him from across a quiet room. It annoyed and startled him greatly.

Help me.

And suddenly he was standing over the dying Holly Greene, surely through his own power but not his will. Frost crunched underfoot and his breath plumed in the frigid air as he looked down at the mortal slipping into Hela's embrace. Her last thoughts were a shout, sinking deep into him and compelling his body to move before his usually swift mind could catch up.

He knelt onto the ice that crawled outwards from her body, feeling the cold as it cracked under his weight and unaffected by it. "I'm afraid there is only myself," he said dryly, pressing his palm to a cheek tinged blue. It felt as if that which made up his magical being was roiling under the cold flesh, ripping unchecked through the mortal's body and tearing at her soul like a cloth scrap left in the wind. She was on the edge of death, breath still in her frozen lungs. Hela surely had the mortal's hand in her own.

Loki would not let his daughter have the Midgardian, at least not this day. Her unbound hair crackled with breaking frost as he took her chin and turned her face up. Fingers slipping over her frozen eyes, he bent, covered her cold lips with his own, and breathed.

Magic rushed eagerly between them, carried by his breath and given purpose. Tissue began to knit and blood flowed, sluggishly at first, then stronger as magic bolstered her heart and oxygen filled cells and tinted them with robust life. The frost that clung to skin and garment melted as flesh warmed, and the cold receded as he gave it a boundary within the mortal form. And, finally, she gave a shuddering breath of her own, gasping into his mouth.

When she gasped again he was assured her lungs were thawed, sitting up and wiping delicately at the smear of her blood on his chin. He wrinkled his nose at the soiled glove, and with a flick of his fingers it became smoke. The girl lived, he had answered her call and his duty done. But, oh, how oh how had this child gotten herself into this mess to begin with.

His fingers danced against his lips as he considered the shaking creature at his feet and mercy. At her breast he saw her fist clutching and worrying something convulsively, and now that the magical energies were contained he could feel the power that thrummed in whatever she hid there. Loki reached down, and her fingers relaxed when he gave them a soothing caress.

When the bit of glittering Bifrost crystal flashed he cursed aloud, and went to snatch it from her.

NO! shrieked through Loki's mind, sending him reeling and onto his back. "How did you get that?" he snarled as he righted himself, but the little wench was still unconscious. He hissed with anger and reached again.

DON'T TOUCH IT! she shouted again, pure protective instinct.

Horrified, Loki found that he obeyed; he had no choice, for she had compelled him to.

The god seethed with rage and panic as he began to piece things together. Magic, manifest as frost and ice, a flickering shard of the Bifrost bridge, and a mortal whose will overrode his own. Loki felt sick as the horrifying realization came to him, memories of being swallowed in the space between the branches of the World Tree while he watched the rainbow bridge crumble and flicker above him. A thin, near invisible scar along his palm itched and he rubbed at it. The wound from that day had long healed, unnoticed in the face of the coldness of dark space, by the time he found himself with The Other.

A piece of the Bifrost, slick with his blood and preserved by the cold of empty void, had fallen by chance to Midgard, and found by this girl. Through some perverse twist of the Norns' hands, his blood had come into her and mingled with her own. Mortals were such fragile creatures, and the blood of gods so very strong. He was bound to her, by his own blood, and he had destroyed what of her blood he could have taken in return.

Loki seethed. He should crush her skull while she lay helpless as a newborn at his feet. Bitterly, he realized, that he would have no chance to. His own magic coursed in her, shaped specially for her mortal form by his own hand, and it would no more allow harm to come to her than to his own self. Undoubtedly it had come from the blood bond amplified by the shard of the Bifrost.

While Loki thought his anger cooled. The mortal could hardly realize the significance of the situation, nor the link between them. She probably didn't even know who he was, not by sight anyways. It would be easy to seduce her as he had done with countless mortals before, style himself as her lord and teacher, get her to offer some of her blood in return. He did have so few allies in this realm. And mortals, they were so fragile and lived such short lives.

Loki smiled finally, reaching down to tuck a damp strand of the girl's hair behind her ear. Lifting her easily, he carried her to her bedchambers. "We are going to be such friends," he said.

Whether it was the pounding of her headache that woke Holly up or if it had started throbbing after drifting out of unconsciousness didn't really matter. The last thing she remembered was passing out on the floor, but must have gotten up at some point because she was curled up in a little ball in the middle of bed, covered with every blanket she owned. All over ached, like a bad cramp after running, as she pushed herself up on an elbow, squinting at the clock. The numbers glowed acid green in the darkness and she guessed the time to be just past 2 AM, eyes refusing to focus.

"I see you've finally awakened," a soft, honeyed voice said, drifting in the darkness. Holly's heart leapt up into her throat; someone was in her house. "Good, I was starting to worry."

A scratchfizzle and sharp smell of sulphur, and a warm little yellow light sprang forth close to her bedside. It grew bigger as it tasted the candle wick and found it to its taste, and Holly groaned in pain as her eyes throbbed suddenly. "Who are you, what are you doing in my house," she demanded, voice a whispering rasp as her throat protested. Holly felt panic sink in when she found she'd only the strength to push herself up a little, though not enough to keep her there when a cool palm touched her forehead and gently pushed her back to the pillow.

"No harm has come to you by my hand," the voice soothed, a man's voice, and she shut her eyes against the painful glow of the candlelight. His fingers slid down and pressed gently over them, and blessedly the pain began to ebb away.

"Please don't hurt me," Holly whispered, trembling. She knew that she should be terrified, even crying now and begging, but only felt exhausted.

"Of course not," he soothed, and she felt the bed dip deeply beside her as he sat, metal frame protesting under the weight. When he spoke again she could feel the warmth of his breath close to her ear, and jerked in surprise. "You were quite badly hurt when I came upon you. But you will survive, now. I have seen to it."

Holly's mouth was dry, thoughts foggy and hard to make any sense of. "Who are you?"

His mouth didn't touch her skin but she could feel his grin, he was so close.

"Loki."


End file.
